Tenses in writing

Verb tenses tell readers when events or actions occured in time—in the past, present, or future. Your verb choices can also indicate aspect, which expresses the completeness or effects of an action.

Verb Tenses

The present tense is used to express anything that
is happening now or occurring in the present moment. The present also communicates actions that are ongoing, constant, or habitual.
For example:

I'm working on an essay for my English class.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
John loves music.
I run four miles every morning.

Use the past tense to indicate past events,
prior conditions, or completed
processes. For example:

I voted last week.
Ancient Romans believed basil was poisonous.
The fortress crumbled to ruin during the last
century.

The future tense indicates actions or events that
will happen in the future. For example:

I will write my paper this weekend.

Aspect allows you to be more precise in your selection of verbs. Aspect falls into two categories: continuous and perfect. To indicate the continuous aspect, add a form of the verb "to be" and a present participle to your main verb. The perfect aspect is created with a form of the verb "to have" and a past participle.

The following chart shows twelve forms of the verb "to
write" that result from combining time with aspect.

for regular verbs: add "ed"
ex: The rejected senator wrote another e-mail.

for irregular verbs: add "n", "t", "ought", etc.,
ex: The written word is mute until read.
ex: His spent body lay by the pool.
ex: The trial resulted in a hung jury.
ex: He reached his long-sought goal.
ex: The boughten bread is stale.
(The above is colloquial, applying 2 past particple forms to "buy".)

Aspect in Detail

The continuous aspect is created with a form of "to be" and
a present participle (about
participles). For example:

I am writing. (present continuous)
I was writing when he called. (past continuous)
If you want to come over later, we will be watching a movie. (future continuous)

The perfect aspect is created with a form of the verb "to have" and a
past participle. For example:

I have been in Seattle for six months. (present perfect)
I had studied all night for the test. (past perfect)
I will have finished my paper by eight o'clock. (future perfect)

The perfect aspect is often the most challenging to understand, so
here's a brief overview.

Past Perfect describes a past action
completed before another. For example, the next two
sentences describe one action followed by another, but each
achieves a different rhetorical effect by using different verb forms.

She wrote the essay and reread it the next day.
simple past tense: "wrote"
The next day, she reread the essay she had written.
past perfect: "had written"

"Wrote" and "reread" sound equally important in the first
sentence. In the second, the past perfect form "had
written" emphasizes the action "reread."

Present Perfect refers to completed
actions which endure to the present or whose effects are
still relevant.

I broke my leg. (This could refer to any time in my
past.)
I have broken my leg. (The leg is still broken or
otherwise affects my current condition.)

I acted for 10 years. (This implies I no longer
act.)
I have acted for 10 years. (This implies I still
act.)

Future Perfect refers to an action that
will be completed in the future.

She will have written 10 books by her eightieth birthday.

One final note: the terms used to describe aspect have changed over
time, and different terms are often used to describe the same aspect. It may help to know that the following terms are equivalent:

"simple present" (or) "present indefinite"

"past continuous" (or) "past progressive" (or)
"past imperfect"

"past complete" (or) "past perfect"

"past perfect continuous" (or) "past perfect
progressive"

Verb Tenses in Context

Conventions governing the use of tenses in
academic writing differ somewhat from ordinary
usage. Below we cover the guidelines for verb tenses in a variety of genres.

Academic Writing

1. Academic writing generally concerns writing about research. As such, your tense choices can indicate to readers the status of the research you're citing. You have several options for communicating research findings, and each has a different rhetorical effect. For example:

1.1 According to McMillan (1996), the most common cause of death is car accidents.

(or)

1.2 According to McMillan (1996), the most common cause of death has been car accidents.

(or)

1.3 According to McMillan (1996), the most common cause of death was car accidents.

If you choose the present tense, as in Example 1.1, you're implying that the findings
of the research are generally accepted, whereas
the present perfect tense in 1.2 implies not only
general acceptance but also current relevance and,
possibly, the continuity of the findings as an authoritative statement on the causes of death. On the other hand,
the past tense in Example 1.3 emphasizes the finding at the time the research was conducted,
rather than its current acceptance.

However, if you are writing about specific research
methods, the process of research and data collection,
or what happened during the research process, you will more commonly use the
past tense, as you would normally use in conversation.
The reason is that, in this instance, you are not emphasizing the
findings of the research or its significance, but
talking about events that occurred in the past. Here is an
example:

1.4 During the data collection process, Quirk
conducted 27 interviews with students in his
class. Prior to the interviews, the students responded to a brief
questionnaire.

Books, Poems, Plays, Movies

2. When you are discussing a book, poem, movie, play,
or song the convention in disciplines within the humanities is to use the present tense, as in:

2.1 In An Introduction to English Grammar (2006),
Noam Chomsky discusses several types of
syntactic structures.

2.2 In Paradise Lost, Milton sets up Satan
as a hero who changes the course of history.

Historical Contrast

3. In cases where it is useful to contrast different ideas that
originate from different periods, you can use the
past and the present or present perfect tense to
do so. The past tense implies that an idea or a theory has lost its currency or validity, while the present tense conveys relevance or
the current state of acceptance.

For example, when you want to discuss the fact that a
theory or interpretation has been supplanted by new perspectives on the subject:

3.1 Stanley Fish (1993) maintained a
reader-response stance in his analysis of Milton's
L'Allegro and Il Penseroso. However, recent literary
critics consider/have considered this stance to be
inappropriate for the two poems.

The verb tenses used above emphasize the contrast between the old view (by
Stanley Fish), which is indicated by the past tense, and
the new view (by "recent literary critics"), which is
indicated by the present tense or the present perfect
tense. The difference between the present
tense and the present perfect (i.e. between
consider and have considered ) is that
the present perfect suggests that the current view has
been held for some time.

Research Proposals

4. The future tense is standard in research
proposals because they largely focus on plans for the future.
However, when writing your research
paper, use the past tense to discuss
the data collection processes, since the
development of ideas or experiments— the process of researching that brings the reader to your ultimate findings—occurred in the past.

Resumes and Cover Letters

5. In a resume, the past tense is used for
reporting past experience and responsibilities. However, in a
statement of purpose, a personal statement, or a cover
letter, the present perfect tense is commonly used to
relate past experience to present abilities, e.g., "I have managed fourteen employees."

Stories/Narrative Prose

6. The past tense is commonly used when writing a narrative or a story, as in:

6.1 Once upon a time, there was a peaceful kingdom in the heart of a jungle . . .

Some writers use the present
tense in telling stories, a technique called the
"historical present" that creates an
air of vividness and immediacy. For example:

6.2 Yesterday when I was walking around downtown, the craziest thing
happened. This guy in a suit comes up to
me, and says, "If you know what's good for you . . . "

In this example, the speaker switches from the past tense in giving context
for the story to the present tense in relating the events themselves.

As we reviewed here, verb tenses can convey
different meanings and degrees of precision, and most genres of academic writing follow specific conventions for tense and aspect.